Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Game of Thrones 3.4: And Now His Watch Is Ended

And now I shall sum up this week's episode of Game of Thrones in merely three letters:

WOW.

You thought I was going to say OMG, didn't you?

Without any further ado, let's get moving.

Christopher: So … kind of an uneventful episode, huh?

I am trying, trying so very hard to write down my impressions in a calm and
objective manner … and it’s taken me three tries to not open my bit here with
all caps and multiple exclamation points. I think I might be in a calmer
headspace now, but for the sake of not losing my shit, I am NOT going to begin
with the end (as is my inclination). I will leave off impressions of Daenerys’
awesomeness for you, Nikki, as I’m curious to see how someone who hasn’t read
the books reacts to her elegant little solution to her problem.

Instead, I will begin in the middle: if it
weren’t for the immolation of Astapor in the final ten minutes, the most
striking part of this episode for me was the conversation between Cersei and
Tywin. And, really, that’s saying a lot, as this episode was full to bursting
with a whole series of remarkable two-handed short plays—Jaime and Brienne,
Margaery and Sansa … and Varys and Tyrion, Varys and Olenna, Varys and Ros (it
was sort of the Varys show, really, except again for the napalming of
slavemasters at the end).

But Cersei and Tywin take the win in the
understated dialogue category. We have here articulated, finally, Cersei’s
smoldering resentment at not being taken seriously by her father. I couldn’t
help but think of it almost as a retread of Tyrion’s bitter exchange with their
father in episode one. We see that Tyrion isn’t alone in feeling marginalized
by Lannister senior—Cersei too believes that her particular talents and insights
aren’t being acknowledged, and like Tyrion she is treated to a pretty brutal
put-down. When she voices her (well-founded) fears that Margaery is
manipulating Joffrey, Tywin’s retort almost certainly had all those who hate
that little shit (i.e. everyone)
nodding emphatically in agreement: “I wish you
could manipulate him. I don’t distrust you because you’re a woman. I distrust
you because you’re not as smart as you think you are. You’ve allowed that boy
to run roughshod over you and everyone else in this city.”

Truer words never spoken, and I want to
take a moment, yet again, to praise Charles Dance’s performance. That gravitas
thing I keep coming back to? He owns it. I’ve been wanting to share this very
brief clip of him in the adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s novel Going Postal, in which he plays the
enigmatic and very dangerous city Patrician, Lord Vetinari:

He’s one of those actors who can convey
more with an eyebrow than most people can with semaphore flags and a megaphone.
But what’s even better in this scene? Cersei’s little smile as she listens.
“Perhaps you should trying stopping
him doing whatever he likes,” she suggests, and in that moment I had an
unaccustomed pang of sympathy for her. Anyone who has been following these
co-blogs from the start knows that the casting of Lena Headey has been one of
the few about which I’ve been ambivalent—but every so often she nails it.

One last thought on the scene: her
accusation that he is doing “nothing” to get Jaime back and his response were
pitch-perfect; but it’s the letters that he is calmly writing as they speak
that are the most important prop in the scene. I’m not offering a spoiler here
… just saying that, later in this season (or possibly early in the next, I
don’t know the schedule they’re on) those letters will take on a massive
significance.

And with that all said, I now cede the
stage for Nikki’s reaction to the fire-bombing of Astapor. Cue squeeing in
three, two …

Nikki: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! OH MY GOD.

Where do I start? That Daenerys DID
understand everything that horrible tyrant has said to her this whole time?
That she figured out how to have her army and get her dragon back, too? That
she freed the men, and they still remained with her? That she ended up heeding
the advice of BOTH advisors by not only getting an army that is well trained,
but earned their respect, which is
what she’d been told last week was the most important thing?

That her dragon fucking immolated Kraznys???!!!

Seriously, guys. Targaryens win the Game of Thrones. Game, set, match. We can
all go home now. My loyalties remain with Daenerys and I hope she takes down
every last one of them. What a frickin’ brilliant scene and end to a lead-up of
four episodes.

Daenerys having this epic triumph at the
end of the episode comes back to the gender issues you and I were talking about
last week, and is an ongoing trope on the show. Back to what you were just
talking about, Chris, Cersei demands to know why exactly she can’t be
considered the heir. After all, she and Jaime were twins, and therefore born at
the same time, but he’s given the title of heir simply because he’s got a Y
chromosome. With Craster, there’s a weird gender reversal where he kills the
male babies rather than the female ones, but only so he can feed the creatures
in the forest and continue to fornicate with his daughters. Not exactly a
women’s lib move there. Lady Olenna talks to Cersei and they discuss how
ridiculous it is that men only are the ones who have the power. Theon marvels
at the fact his father gives so much to his sister and nothing to him (he’s put
out by the fact that she is a girl
and he is a man, and therefore naturally
deserving). And, in an interesting addendum to the scene between Jaime and
Brienne last week when they were on the horse and she was asking him what he
would do if he were a woman, in this episode, now missing a hand, Jaime is in
the depths of depression and wants to die. Brienne tells him he’s suffered a
“misfortune,” and he is horrified, telling her he’s lost his sword hand, and “I
was that hand.” She looks at him and
says with some disgust, “You sound like a bloody woman.” Again, she doesn’t self-identify as a “bloody
woman,” and is put out to see him acting like one. Almost immediately, he
begins eating, showing a will to live.

In this episode, it’s the ones without
penises who show the intellect and nerve: Olenna, Daenerys, Cersei, Arya, Margaery,
Ros, Brienne… and Varys. Further to what you said above, I wrote in my notes
this week, “Who writes for Varys? His lines are superb.” Conleth Hill delivers
the lines with aplomb, so soft-spoken yet forceful, so simple yet poetic. In
the first two seasons I didn’t trust this man at all, but there’s something
about him this season where I feel he’s on the right side; I just can’t put my
finger on it. “Look little lambs, a spider in the garden,” says Olenna when she
sees him coming, and it’s that sort of thinking that keeps me from truly
trusting him.

But in the only scene with Tyrion this
week, Varys finally reveals exactly how he lost his member, in a truly awful
memory of a sorcerer who bought him and used him as part of some magic to bring
about a voice from the flames. “A voice called, and the sorcerer answered.” He
describes being cut, “root and stem,” and the entire time, he’s curiously
prying open a large wooden crate (which, at one point, we see Tyrion lean over
to look at and there are clearly holes in the one end). I’m sure most people in
the audience who, like me, hadn’t read the books, could still anticipate what
we were going to find in there. But the moral of his story was clear: patience
wins. Some look for immediate revenge, but that kind of revenge is swift and
not well thought-out. It’s the slow, patient revenge, where you keep your eye
on the prize but live a life outside of it, slowly growing your influence so
that revenge will be spectacular,
that is the most rewarding. At the beginning of the season, I commented that
our first glimpse of Tyrion is him looking into a mirror at his scar. Here, in
a very similar moment, Varys looks into his mirror as he recounts his long
wait. Staring at himself in that mirror, his look announces to the audience
that he knows exactly who he is, and has looked at himself and inside himself
to know what he needs to do. It’s a wonderful scene, and my favourite bit of
dialogue in the episode. “I have no doubt the revenge you want will be yours in
time,” he tells Tyrion as he finally cracks open the crate. “If you have the
stomach for it.”

That said, Daenerys didn’t wait at all, and
her revenge was SWEET.

Christopher:
To answer your question about who writes for Varys:
a lot of the time it’s George R. R. Martin. Varys’ best lines in this episode
were in telling the story of how he got cut—and that tale is practically
verbatim from the novel. But his other exchanges were inventions … as was the
home delivery of the sorcerer (is there anything Amazon doesn’t ship?). I
laughed when you said that it was fairly obvious what was going to be revealed
when he opened the box, because I did not see that coming at all—which perhaps is an interesting
little blind spot that comes with having read the novels. If it didn’t happen
in the books, I’m not really looking at it.

Did anyone else who has read the books feel
the same?

I agree with you that Conleth Hill’s
portrayal of Varys has been amazing—not least because in the novels he’s
described as being corpulent and primped and powdered and exaggeratedly
effeminate—a sort of sinister Cameron from Modern
Family, if you like. And while that is at times shown to be all affected,
Varys playing to people’s expectations of him, it does get a little wearying
after a while. I far prefer this Varys, with his quiet dignity.

That being said, he does make much of the
virtue of being unobtrusive, and indeed conforming to what people expect as a
means of hiding in plain sight. That was one of the themes running through this
episode, as was evident in the conversation between Lady Olenna and Cersei—the
Queen of Thorns quite obviously has no use for men and their pretensions to
power and strength, and is doubly disgusted that such chuckle-headed louts are
the ones ruling the world. Cersei, tellingly, cannot quite bring herself to
agree and offers the lame and unconvincing argument that things are the way
they are because, well, gods. The difference between Olenna and Cersei is that
Cersei wants power but cannot imagine how she can grasp or wield it outside of
a patriarchal structure—first, she assumes she can rule through her son; when
that doesn’t work, she asks her father oh, please, can I have just a little bit
of the power? She completely misses what Olenna grasps so sublimely—that these self-important
men cannot see her as anything other than a woman—in her youth an ornament, in
her winter years a curmudgeonly old bat. But knowing that she is thus
effectively invisible, she is able to plot all the more subtly.

And speaking of hiding in plain sight: that
was also what Daenerys effectively did. Those closest to her know her worth,
having seen her emerge from the fire with dragons on her shoulders. Barristan
Selmy is the exception on this front, but he venerates her lineage. In Astapor,
as in Qarth, she is seen as little better than a beggar, a pretty thing who
wants to play at being a queen.

More fools them. But she even surprises her
own people: I think my favourite part of the Astapor scene (aside from that
moment when she orders her dragon to barbecue the douchebag) is the expression
on Jorah’s face as he realizes what Dany has done, and what she’s about to do.
It’s a wonderfully subtle moment, and Iain Glenn gets it right—just the right
amount of dawning realization mingled with awe and respect. I love the fact
that the slavemaster is oblivious at first when she speaks in Valyrian, so
enthralled is he with his new prize, while everyone else essentially does a
double take. And when he does realize it, her imperious response to his question,
that she is of the House Targaryen and that Valyrian is her native tongue,
shows just how far Daenerys has come since we first met her.

And then, appropriately, a whole lot of
blood and fire. Am I the only person who watched the pillars of flame leap up
behind Daenerys and thought of Apocalypse
Now?

Nikki: For those reading this, when Chris sent me his first pass he
titled the email “I love the smell of dragonfire in the morning…” and I thought
the Apocalypse Now allusion was
entirely appropriate, and correct.

Let’s move over to another character, one I
tend to ignore for the most part but whose story was actually shocking this
week. Last week, Chris, you were talking about the various forms of torture on
this show and how graphic they can be, and this week they stepped it up to a
different sort of torture. We’ve seen Theon on the wooden X, with a screw being
slowly turned into his foot. The physical torture there was unbearable, and I
commented that I wondered if the emotional torture of putting a bag over his
head and then whispering that he’ll come back for him later was almost worse,
because he’s in a room, unable to see, not knowing what danger lurks around
every corner.

But this week it’s stepped up to a horrific
level. Last week he was free, on his way to find his sister before being
ambushed, before the boy who freed him (who I believe hasn’t been named; I have
yet to hear a name for him onscreen) shows up and saves his life. This week
they continue on to Yara’s hold, and they come in through the back of the
place. Theon finally confesses to the crime of finding two orphan boys and
killing and burning the bodies to make it look like Rickon and Bran so that he
could take King’s Landing and make his father proud. He begins by spouting his
usual venom against Ned Stark, but by the end of his monologue he admits that
Ned was always his father, and now that Ned is dead (Ned’s dead, baby… Ned’s
dead… sorry, couldn’t resist that one), he’ll never be able to impress his
father. It’s a moment of clear-sightedness that Theon has been lacking so far,
and I wonder if this means his character will become a little more interesting?

But all of that takes a backseat to what
the youth has waiting for him… for he’s led him through the back gate of the
very castle where he’d been kept captive, and as he strikes a match and holds
up a torch, shouting to the others that he’d caught Theon escaping, Theon
realizes with horror and utter sorrow that he’s right back where he started, in
the torture room with the giant wooden X. His saviour has become his betrayer,
and the hope that had built in him for the past day washes out of him like a
flood. It’s a truly devastating moment. How can he possibly recover from that?
Will he ever trust anyone again? It makes me wonder who these men are, exactly.
Are they his father’s men? Will his confession to the boy be his downfall? (I’m
thinking that’s likely.) Could they belong to someone else?

Christopher:
I think my only choice as regards Theon is to take
the fifth—they’ve made significant changes to his storyline, but not so
significant that I can’t see how they’ll possibly link up again with what’s
happening in the novels. I’ve got a very good idea of whom the men are who’ve
captured him and whom his erstwhile saviour is. But then, I could also be
entirely wrong if the writers have decided to reinvent Theon’s unfortunate
side-trip into misery.

I will however say this much: if they are doing what I suspect, it’s a pretty
ingenious way to keep Theon relevant to the plot, as well as build toward
something resembling sympathy for the simpering little shit.

Sorry if that’s frustrating, but I’m erring
on the side of caution. Fellow GRRM fans, y’all know what I mean.

On reflection, this episode was pretty
evenly divided between shocks and dialogue (note to self: copyright “Shocks and
Dialogue” as a possible band name). Again not counting Daenerys’ gambit in
Astapor, the biggest shock was north of the Wall, when a handful of Night
Watchmen turn not just on Craster, but on their own commander—killing Jeor
Mormont as well as their reluctant host. I of course knew this was coming, but
it was a harrowing moment in the novel. I’m curious to know what viewers
thought … it’s not that we didn’t get hints that the rangers were feeling
mutinous, but it is still a horrifying transgression.

(It hasn’t really been articulated as such
on the show, but the law of hospitality is as close as we come to something
sacrosanct in the novels—even the most treacherous and desperate person will
not turn on his guests or his host, both for fear of being labelled an
oathbreaker and for fear of divine retribution. So however much of a monster
Craster is, once the Night Watchmen have eaten his food, they are bound by the
law of hospitality to obey his rules and not harm his person. Hence the
extremely egregious nature of their crime).

In the novel, that mutinous muttering is
more pronounced, as we learn in the prologue that a group of the watchmen have
hatched a plot to kill Mormont, steal food and horses, and flee … only to have
their plan interrupted by the ice-zombie attack. Their treason is only
postponed, however, and becomes absorbed into the general chaos of violence
that erupts under Craster’s roof. Again, no one is safe: Jeor Mormont might not
have been everyone’s favourite character, but he was a solid and gruffly
likable figure (much more so than when he played an IRA-connected priest on
season three of Sons of Anarchy). But
there he goes, killed rather suddenly—by his own men, no less.

All of which sends Sam frantically out to
the birthing shack to collect Gilly and her baby boy and take her off into the
frozen forest—which, as we all know, holds fiends even more dangerous than the
ones sacking Craster’s keep.

What did you think of that mutiny in the
north, Nikki? Did it come as a shock?

Nikki: As you say, it was definitely an episode that balanced the quite
moments of explanatory dialogue that opened new avenues for the episodes to
come, with the shocking ends of the storylines that have been in the works for
a while. (I think this is easily my favourite episode yet.) And the mutiny was
definitely a shock. For me, it wasn’t surprising that they killed Craster —
he’s made out to be a scumbag of the lowest possible kind, and the only true
fate for this guy was to wind up dead — but when they turned on Mormont, I was
very surprised. (I’m also currently in season 3 of Sons of Anarchy… with all its Oirish accents.) My husband said it
came as no surprise to him; after all, these are mostly thieves and people who were
sent to the Wall because they had no other use in society. Not exactly a group
of tea-sipping gentlemen.

So now they’re all running wild in the
woods North of the Wall, and that’s a bad thing. The one guy who particularly
hates Sam (or “Piggy,” as he prefers to call him) shouts a threat out to him as
Sam retreats with Gilly, but as you say, the men of the Night’s Watch might be
the least of Sam’s problems.

As usual, there’s just so much to cover
here that we have to breeze over the last parts. Arya is entrenched in the
Brotherhood without Banners as they put the Hound on trial and find him guilty,
mainly because of Arya calling up something that happened way back at the
beginning of season 1, where Joffrey ordered that the Hound kill the butcher’s boy,
Arya’s friend. The Hound is an interesting character, because while here he
stands tall, sneering at Arya and everyone else and saying he was quite simply
following orders, in season 2 we saw him defying those orders to try to save
Sansa. Was he just doing it for himself — was part of him in love with her — or
did he feel some loyalty to Ned Stark? I thought he rather crossed over to the
side of “good guy” last season, so I’m torn about whose side I’m on here.

Margaery continues to be amazing, and in this
episode she claps and squeals as Joffrey shows her the remains of the
Targaryens, gleefully dancing upon their remains as he recounts each of their
deaths. Cersei looks on from afar, wondering about the boy, when Margaery comes
up with the idea of taking him out on the balcony to feel the love of his
people. Cersei lunges forward, thinking, “Oh my GOD they hate him and will kill
him” but Margaery has everything under control, laying the foundation for this
moment by visiting all those orphanages and telling everyone how much their
king loves them. And she’s right; they walk out onto the balcony and are
basically King’s Landing’s Will and Kate, waving to all below them. Not only
has she convinced Joffrey that he’s a popular ruler, but by standing at his side
she makes sure everyone sees her and only her as his queen.

And finally, while Bran’s not in the
episode for long, we see another throwback to the beginning of season 1 (the
first episode, actually), where Bran begins climbing a tree in his dreamscape,
only to have Catelyn find him up there and bellow at him to stop climbing…
berating him to such an extent that he actually falls just like he did after
seeing Jaime and Cersei together. It’s a reminder to all of us that Bran knows
what the twins have been up to, and who Joffrey’s real father is. Ned Stark
might be dead, but Bran Stark has the knowledge in his head, even if he doesn’t
quite understand it yet.

And ALL of this sets the scene for new
storylines and directions next week. I cannot wait. Thank you, as always,
Chris, for your invaluable input!! We shall see you all next week. And now let's just look once again on that incredible final shot.

5 comments:

Re: Theon - YES! I totally think that his journey will culminate, ahem, exactly as it did in the book, Chris. Also, I echo what a huge deal it was for the NIght's Watch to have mutinied like they did. I mean, yes they were mostly murderers and rapists, but the NIght's Watch is still a position of honor, in a sense. They very much(most, anyway) take pride in their duty upon the wall and beyond. It's important to remember that! And Nikki, I'll do it for you: OMG, HOW ABOUT THAT DANAERYS?!? LOVE HER!

I loved the scene with Cersei talking to Olena and her realizing exactly how little she thinks of men and how they are really just a means to an end. Who has Olena probably influenced most of all - Margary. Cersei sees clearly how Margary plans to rule Westeros herself manipulating Joffery the whole way.

And then Cersei immediatley runs and tells her father.

I wonder what the Tyrells really plan to use Sansa for - it can't really be just to thwart Mayor Carcetti - I mean Littlefinger can it?

Mother of Dragons! this episode was complex and amazing and requires multiple watching. as others have said, every scene, every bit of action and dialogue felt important, and has layers. I had a feeling Danerys understood what the slavemaster was saying - that would be the only reason (from a story telling stand point) to have him be so atrocious. And, "dragons are not slaves", so how she possibly give them away. They are her children!

I worry about how she will transport and feed her army, but I am sure this is addressed as part of her ongoing struggle to the throne. I am having a tough time imagining how she can be beat. The throne is hers.

From North of the Wall to Astapor, I see why the books are called A Song of Ice and Fire.

@Christopher: I’m curious to see how someone who hasn’t read the books reacts to her elegant little solution to her problem.

You addressed that to Nikki, but speaking as such a person as well I can say that it was pretty much what I'd expected would happen and not at all the less awesome for that.

@Christopher: it’s the letters that he is calmly writing as they speak that are the most important prop in the scene

I wondered if they'd actually come into play in the narrative, but I must admit that I also enjoyed thinking of Tywin simply writing over and over "Seven hells... My children are hopeless and my grandson is even worse."

@Nikki: it’s the ones without penises

For some reason, I heard that in Gollum's voice and it was hilarious.

Varys may not have a penis anymore, by the way, thanks to Mr. Special-Delivery Sorcerer Guy — but he does finally have that dick in a box.

@Nikki: That said, Daenerys didn’t wait at all, and her revenge was SWEET.

I'd say that she waited; it was just a matter of degrees. She could have let on that she understood Kraznys immediately, or had a dragon toast him earlier and try to usurp his rule. Instead she purchased the Unsullied fairly; the fact that her dragon was still loyal to her command after it was traded to Kraznys is just his bad luck.

Question of the Week: If the Brotherhood without Banners is loyal to the Starks, what does that bode for the chances of Hulk turning up in the next Iron Man movie?

Mostly, I write about television, and with this being the home of the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011, a lot of that television is Joss Whedon-related (when it's not about Lost). Stick around if you love Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Sherlock, Lost, BtVS, Doctor Who, or anything on HBO.

About Me

I've published companion guides to Xena, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Alias, and Lost through ECW Press, and my latest book is "Finding Lost — Season Six: The Unofficial Guide." Currently, I love Revenge, Community, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead... actually, pretty much everything on HBO or AMC.

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Welcome to the home of the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011, where every Tuesday night we convened to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer from season 1 to the end. I was joined by over 25 guest commentators and Buffy scholars who helped me lead you through the watch, offering non-spoilery discussion for the new watchers as well as spoiler-filled discussions for the rewatchers. The entire Rewatch can be found in the archives here, listed by week and contributor. Go here for the full 2011 schedule, and here to see the list of amazing contributors. And be sure to pick up my book, Bite Me, a complete episode by episode guide to the series!